Over the weekend we had the pleasure of attending our local astronomy club's Dark Sky Festival held in Wood Buffalo National Park. Wood Buffalo National Park now holds the designation for the world's largest Dark Sky Preserve, meaning that there are no artificial lights visible in the park (roughly the size of Switzerland) to interfere with views of the night sky. There were loads of activities for the kids such as planetarium shows, painting, making Solar System Fruit Salad, rocket launches, a LEGO robotics competition, stand up paddle boarding, votive holder making, glow sticks and scary stories around the campfire. Quite a few telescopes were left set up over the weekend as well for those wanting to view stars, planets, and nebulae late into the night. We also had guest speakers Peter McMahon (The Wilderness Astronomer) and astronaut Roberta Bondar. It was a wonderful weekend and we are already looking forward to next year's event! The Wood Buffalo National Park staff were amazing and coordinated many of the children's activities and were on hand to make sure things were running smoothly logistic-wise. We all camped in a field - tents, travel trailers, campers. So much fun! Here are a few photos I managed to snap. I didn't get a huge variety (and no night photos!) as I was chasing Judah much of the time, but it gives you a little bit of an idea of what we were up to anyhow. :)
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